Reichu wrote:Question #1 (which I love to ask): Why is LCL suddenly red?Question #2: If lower lifeforms come back automatically, more or less, why is the Earth still red before we see Yui in space?

1. Because it's now full of souls.2. Because the LCL is still full of billions of human souls spilled when the black moon shatters.

You missed the script when I translated it? The rust is from the nail, not the cross.

Oh yeah, I rememeber that. The point, however, still stands. It would take at least as long for the nail to rust as it would for the cross. I suppose you could argue that Shinji used an already rusty nail, but what would be the point of that? The rust is plainly there to indicate the passage of quite a bit of time.

Again, if the injuries had a big enough impact on her, um, ego... to warrant the bandages, why has she not come back with the actual injuries? Or is it an unspoken rule that you'll return with your body perfectly intact no matter what? (I guess that would be good news for Toji-kun.)

Since you have to want to live in order to come back, it would make no senseto come back with potentially fatal injuries.

For whatever reason, Asuka never received the full force of the Spear (not Lance, dear, Spear ) through the head, otherwise she WOULD have died immediately. (She just gets a bloody eye instead of two huge pierce wounds through her skull. Yeah, that makes a LOT of sense.) Also, for whatever reason, the other insults dealt to her mama apparently didn't impress themselves very much upon Asuka, otherwise she'd be returning in a full-body cast.

I'll concurr with that, but if she had come back with a split arm it would probably have been fatal if not treated instantly. (Unless there was miraculously no atrerial damage at all.)

It's red to go with the "Red Earth Purification" mumbo-jumbo. What, you may ask, is "Red Earth Purification"? I dunno, but Gendo refers to the Dead Sea of Antartica (which is red, btw) as a "purified world, cleansed of original sin". Therefore, I would say that the red-tinged world, post-3I, is just a matter of Anno throwing in some psuedo-religious gobbledygook to go with the apocalyptic theme of the movie.

Question #2: If lower lifeforms come back automatically, more or less, why is the Earth still red before we see Yui in space?

Who knows? I just figure this is a case of where we are thinking about this stuff harder than Anno ever did...

You missed the script when I translated it? The rust is from the nail, not the cross.

And that is relevant how? If the cross is made of silver, it wouldn't rust anyway. In any case, I fully support the notion that Shinji was alone on that beach for a long time, possibly even months. The best evidence for that, in my opinion, are the grave markers.

thewayneiac wrote:1. Because it's now full of souls.2. Because the LCL is still full of billions of human souls spilled when the black moon shatters.

The earth turned red, but the souls went into Rei. There were no souls in the LCL, so it would still be orange/yellow when the earth turned red.

So that means the ATMOSPHERE is what turnes red.

But I digress. If all life was suddenly liquified, then the earth would be a barren desert, save for the ever-popular, post-apocalyptic ghost-city.

So again, if everything is gone, no plants, animals, and Shinji is stranded on a beach, what has he been living off of? This is something I'd really like to know because Reichu's quotes lean toward EVERYTHING dying.

And about the rusty nail; couldn't it be possible the nail is rusty because of the tide? Couldn't Shinji have hung the cross on the rusty nail?

And what about Asuka's wounds -- or possibly lack thereof. She wants to come back alive, but she feels that she is wounded. So she wants to come back 'fixed.' Maybe the manifestation of the dressings are her way of solving the problem. And before you reply with "If she wants to be healthy, why would she recreate those wounds at all?" Remember that she DOES have bandages all over. If she is fixed, she wouldn't need them, but they are there.

Like Reichu says, there is no unspoken rule that you will return 100% intact, Asuka's dressings prove that. It also suggests to me that how you see yourself in your own heart determins how you create your body. She believes she is wounded, but she perhaps believes she will get better. Maybe That is why the wounds are not as severe as the ones that killed her.

EDIT: There is nothing that proves Shinji was on the beach for a long time, but there is nothing that proves he wasn't either. It's even possible that Asuka came out before Shinji, it's possible that they have been there a short time, and it's also possible that many years have passed since 3I and Shinji + Asuka may be in the year 2199.

thewayneiac wrote:The rust is plainly there to indicate the passage of quite a bit of time.

What takes time is the almost insoluble dark iron oxide to wash from the nail and be deposited on the cross (stone? plastic? ivory?) ; as opposed to the almost overnight orange oxides that even a dewfall might provoke on a new nail.

Vicil wrote:And about the rusty nail; couldn't it be possible the nail is rusty because of the tide? Couldn't Shinji have hung the cross on the rusty nail?

He most likely did, but it's still obvious that some time has passed (a few days, I would guess), since the rust from the nail has stained the cross (because of rain?). And as Shin-seiki pointed out, there are the grave markers...

2. Because the LCL is still full of billions of human souls spilled when the black moon shatters.

Souls aren't that big. (Well, they change size depending on the situation, like everything else. ) I don't think a few (relative to the total number of souls required to endow all life on Earth) souls would be quite enough to dye an entire planet red.

Oh yeah, I rememeber that. The point, however, still stands. It would take at least as long for the nail to rust as it would for the cross. I suppose you could argue that Shinji used an already rusty nail, but what would be the point of that? The rust is plainly there to indicate the passage of quite a bit of time.

Or it could have just rained once.

Shin-seiki wrote:It's red to go with the "Red Earth Purification" mumbo-jumbo. What, you may ask, is "Red Earth Purification"? I dunno, but Gendo refers to the Dead Sea of Antartica (which is red, btw) as a "purified world, cleansed of original sin". Therefore, I would say that the red-tinged world, post-3I, is just a matter of Anno throwing in some psuedo-religious gobbledygook to go with the apocalyptic theme of the movie.

I've never heard of "Red Earth Purification" anywhere but NGE. I'll have to do some research to make sure this is a real thing. (Probably is, but I like to be sure.)

You're probably right about this, but the discrepancy still annoys me. "Behold! We see people splatter into amber-colored LCL, but it is red everywhere else!"

And that is relevant how?

Because I was nitpicking.

In any case, I fully support the notion that Shinji was alone on that beach for a long time, possibly even months. The best evidence for that, in my opinion, are the grave markers.

How are they the "best evidence" for this assertation?

Vicil wrote:So that means the ATMOSPHERE is what turnes red.

The sky in "I Need You" still manages to be tinted blue like usual.

But I digress. If all life was suddenly liquified, then the earth would be a barren desert, save for the ever-popular, post-apocalyptic ghost-city.

Well, the only glimpses we are given of the Earth once 3I has commenced is after the fact, so the instant return of 'lower lifeforms' wouldn't keep it a desert for long. (Although if everything is supposed to reform from the ocean, how do trees return to the Japanese countryside? )

As far as Asuka is concerned -- I'll, uh, wait to hear what other people have to say, if indeed they have anything to say at all...

There is nothing that proves Shinji was on the beach for a long time, but there is nothing that proves he wasn't either. It's even possible that Asuka came out before Shinji, it's possible that they have been there a short time, and it's also possible that many years have passed since 3I and Shinji + Asuka may be in the year 2199.

Shinji came back first, since he reformed in his entry plug before leaving Mama and was able to set up the grave markers before Asuka arrived. The final ending we see removed a scene (prior to the strangling) in which Asuka kicks down her grave marker, but, even though it isn't there, we know it happened because one of the markers is, indeed, kicked down. In a similar case, we never see Shinji eject the entry plug, but we can see in the final that both the armored cover and the plug are absent from EVA-01. Anno gives us the effects, but not the causes. Meany.

It really matters not how Shinji got down there or how long he's been there. I think Anno was more focused on putting Shinji and Asuka together. After all, that crater is awfully wide, Shinji could have ended up days away from Asuka. It's kind of like that 'Solaris' movie.

The means aren't important. They're together for the sake of the message; everything will somehow be alright.

It's actually a good tactic to use when writing a complicated screenplay. Using a metaphore like Shinji and Yui parting ways instead of showing what actually happens. Stuff like that is just substance. It gets in the way of the story.

Shin-seiki wrote:In any case, I fully support the notion that Shinji was alone on that beach for a long time, possibly even months. The best evidence for that, in my opinion, are the grave markers.

Reichu wrote:How are they the "best evidence" for this assertation?

The grave markers demand a scenario to account for their presence in the scene, and it is up to us, the audience, to supply a narrative for how and why they're there.

"Still... I want to meet them again, because I believe my feelings at that time were real."

I think this tends to indicate that Shinji was expecting to see the others when he came back, and he was surprised and disappointed to find himself all alone in that bleak, blasted landscape. The question then is, how long did it take for that disappointment to give way to a gnawing apprehension that maybe the others weren't coming back at all, and eventually turn to final, bitter despair of ever seeing them again, hence the grave markers? Was it weeks? Months? I certainly don't buy the idea that he washed up on the beach and set to work at once on the graves; to me, they necessarily imply a sustantial ammount of time has gone by.

Asuka's presence, tho, indicates that what Rei and Yui said about people being able to return to their human forms has real weight and meaning, and that maybe, just maybe, the others coming back is a matter of time, however long it might seem to Shinji...

Reichu wrote:Quote: Originally Posted by Vicil everything will somehow be alright.

Unless you're Mr. Tines.

Why, thank you. (Am I notorious, or what?)

At the end, the human condition has reasserted itself with a vengeance; the hero's journey has not ended in redemption, but rather everything is worse off than it started. If things were slowly running down, pre 3I, there is no sign that anything but final decay lies ahead.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I find at the last stage, the identification of the endings is just that one step too far.

One step too far? The narrative in EoE has taken a step beyond what we've been given in EoTV. As I like reiterating, if one is to identify the two endings, "I Need You" clearly comes after "Congratulations". The Shinji who has discovered himself in the surreal studio seems much the same as the Shinji who decides, with Rei and Kaworu's council, that Instrumentality sucks. If EoE abruptly ended with Shinji's personal revelation and didn't show the aftermath of 3I, would that make it any more "upbeat"?